Adalbert II of Italy

Adalbert II of Italy (922-972) was King of Italy from 961 to 962, succeeding Berengar II of Italy and preceding Otto I of Germany.

Biography
Adalbert was born in 922, the son of Berengar II of Italy and Willa of Tuscany. His father came from the House of Ivrea, and his mother was from the Bosonid dynasty. In 950, Adalbert and his father were simultaneously elected to succeed Lothair II of Italy, and they were crowned together on 15 December. His father tried to force Lothair's widow Adelaide of Italy to marry Adalbert to cement their claim to the joint kingship, but she attempted to flee and was imprisoned for four months in Como.

In 951, Otto the Great invaded Italy and released Adelaide, marrying her himself. Adalbert and his father were both allowed to be kings of Italy subject to the Holy Roman Empire, and in 956 Liudolf of Carinthia led an East Francian army into Italy to reassert imperial authority. Adalbert defeated Liudolf, who died before he could return to Germany. Adalbert also campaign against Theobald II of Spoleto and Rome, forcing Pope John XII to ask Germany for help. Adalbert raised an army in Verona, by medieval accounts 60,000-strong, but the nobles refused to fight unless Berengar abdicated in Adalbert's favor. Berengar refused, and Otto entered Milan unopposed, being crowned King of Italy. In the fall of 962, Adalbert took refuge with the Saracens in Fraxinetum in southern Burgundy, then heading to Corsica. Adalbert decided to ask the pope for an anti-German alliance, but both of them fled Rome as Otto's army approached. In 965, Adalbert returned once more, hoping to take Pavia, but Burchard III of Swabia defeated him between Parma and Piacenza on 25 June, and Margrave Guy of Ivrea died in the fighting. Adalbert died in Autun, France in 972 while plotting with the Byzantine Empire to invade Italy.